


A Thousand Times Yes

by GhostOfDorothyStreet



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ed being dramatic, Fake Marriage, M/M, Real Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfDorothyStreet/pseuds/GhostOfDorothyStreet
Summary: Symbolic, heartfelt, but never official(for the 'Fake Marriage' prompt for Nygmobblepot Week)





	A Thousand Times Yes

The first time was honestly something of a happy accident; a strangely Gotham version of getting drunk in Vegas.

It was during a mutual stay in Arkham, in the relatively calm emotional down time between ‘raging impotently at being incarcerated’ and ‘plotting furiously to get back out again’. They’d each settled into their routines, as one does no matter how difficult the situation. As one must.

Gotham being Gotham though, even relative calm doesn’t last. In this case, some self-proclaimed ‘genius’ with a bulky homemade costume and some canisters of bright red gas, decided to recruit himself an ‘army of lunatics’, by spraying down the inmates with an airborne compound that lowered inhibitions and increased energy levels.

Half the inmates completely ignored him, several devoting their newfound energy to completing craft projects and puzzles in the break room. Others were overcome with the need to settle old scores, attacking each other over old arguments about who gets stuck with the bench that wobbles in the cafeteria.

The guards, meanwhile, full of their own aggressive tendencies and stuck breathing in as much of the compound as the inmates, tore the guy limb from limb while he was trying to cajole his ‘army’ to rise up and follow him.

Amateur.

Not that the guards were any less foolish – having had a taste of blood and chaos, they turned on the inmates, and swiftly found themselves outclassed and outnumbered. Those that weren’t killed or maimed found themselves shoved into store closets for the duration.

They counted themselves lucky in retrospect.

In the chaos that ensued, a great number of things transpired that the inmates and surviving guards would have trouble explaining to themselves or the police the next day. The psychedelic mural done in condiments from the kitchen; the furniture from the warden’s office being nailed to the ceiling upside down in a prefect inverted replica of the normal layout; how exactly someone managed to set the shower room on fire…

Ed getting it into his head to stage an impromptu wedding ceremony with his partner in crime and on/off lover barely raised any eyebrows in comparison.

When the GCPD raided the asylum the following morning, Ed and Oswald were curled up asleep together on a gurney, fingers laced. On Oswald’s finger, a heavy duty hexagonal nut removed from a broken door lock mechanism. On Ed’s, a skull shaped ring smeared with the blood of it’s former owner (a guard who’d had the bright idea to try and grab and gag Oswald from behind, losing both ring and finger in the process).

The back of an old requisition form served as a marriage certificate, officiated by ‘Preacher Johnson’ (who made up for not actually being a priest by knowing all the scarier parts of the bible by heart, though his costume-store cassock was still in an evidence locker along with a straight razor and a bottle of poisoned ‘sacramental’ wine…), and witnessed by ‘Tiny’ Mullaney, who had beaten 7 men to death two years previously but just loved weddings.

Though details were hazy, neither regretted it, and they kept both their improvised rings and the title of ‘husband’.

Until their next big fight, at least.

***

It became a tradition after that, a game and a ritual after each break up to make up cycle.

For their second ‘wedding’, Ed proposed on a rooftop, their vows declared to the stars.

The third was Oswald’s idea, mid gun battle, hurried and whispered in case one or the other didn’t survive.

On TV when Ed took over the airwaves, at the Lounge to christen it’s grand re-opening, standing over a traitor’s mutilated body…

At some point they got new rings, plain gold, more tasteful, easier to hide under gloves.

It was fun, giddying. Rushes of romance and affection and defiance at the world. Passionate and dramatic, just like them.

Symbolic, heartfelt, but never official.

The excuses were always there. “We don’t need a piece of paper to prove what we mean to each other”, “They’d never let us near a courthouse without arresting us” “Making things a matter of public record could give our enemies ideas”. But they wore thin over time, just as their old arguments and squabbles stopped being about everything under the sun and became just about that one issue. In some ways they grew closer than ever over time, became more attuned, more perfect for each other.

It was their one remaining point of contention.

“You just don’t want to give up your precious freedom,” Oswald spat at Ed from across a desk, “You like a big gesture, but you don’t want a real commitment.”

“I was under the impression that you liked my ‘big gestures’,” said Ed, sarcastic air quotes and all. Oswald laughed bitterly.

“I would like them a lot more if that wasn’t all it ever was with you. You’re all surface, Ed; all empty flash and drama, with nothing behind it.”

Ed spluttered in protest, but was unable to form words to defend himself. His skin flushed red, and his hands clenched at his sides. To make matters worse, Oswald seemed to take his silence as an admission of guilt.

“You can’t even deny it,” Oswald’s eyes were red and glistening with unshed tears, “You keep running away from me… is it really all just a game that you want to be able to quit whenever it’s convenient?”

“No!” Ed rose from his seat, hands grasping impotently at air, “I just…”

He trailed off, saved from having to finish his sentence by Oswald standing too, and rounding the desk to press a soft kiss to Ed’s lips. Ed wrapped his arms around him, holding him close and tight.

On one level, he’d have loved nothing more than a permanent commitment, and he certainly never wanted to be with anyone else. He threw the phrase ‘love of my life’ around a lot in his younger days, but if he really and truly had someone who deserved the title, it was Oswald.

But none of that quite erased the fears he had. The cowardice he hated himself for.

“I love you, Oswald…” he whispered against his lips.

But Oswald smiled at him sadly, and pulled out of his arms.

He removed his ring and set it down upon the varnished table top, looking up at Ed with a resigned melancholy in his eyes.

“Not enough.”

***

Ed’s parents had loved each other, once.

He didn’t like to think about them much, but as his main reference point for marriages in general, it was hard not to. Hard not to think back to the wedding photos on the dresser, how happy they had both looked. How different they had seemed to the two miserable people he spent his life with until he turned 18 and could leave without looking back.

It happened sometimes, couples who had been together for years, only to divorce quickly after marrying. Things that hadn’t mattered before suddenly mattering a great deal more.

But… his parents had married young. How well could they have possibly known each other then. They were high school sweethearts, brought together by lust and youthful enthusiasm and beauty. When that faded, they had nothing, just bitterness and lost opportunities.

Ed and Oswald… they had been through hell together. They had grown, if not old, then certainly more mature together. It was hard to fathom them encountering anything in the future that could possibly be worse than what they had already weathered. They had survived attempted murders, betrayals and deceit, petty arguments and clashes of opinion, and had come out the other side more devoted than ever.

Then why was Ed still so afraid?

Alone in his apartment, he looked in the mirror, and saw only himself staring back. A man pushing forty, grey starting to thread through his hair, eyes tired and searching and achingly lonely just for being without Oswald for a few days. Fundamentally though, the reflection was just that, a true reflection, silent and ordinary, moving only when he did.

He trusted Oswald, that much was unshakable. What he trusted less, after all this time, was himself.

What if he woke up one day as someone else? Someone who would turn on Oswald, and destroy his own life? Was that what had held him back all these years? Made him make sure there was always an emergency exit to his life so that any buried side of him that chose to resurface couldn’t burn the whole thing down?

He buried his head in his hands, feeling the cool metal of his own ring brush his forehead.

But what was the point in trying to protect someone when doing so hurt them just as much?

***

“Bludhaven?”

“It seemed appropriate as the opposite of a ‘big gesture’.”

Oswald put down the train tickets, and looked up at Ed a little sceptically.

“I don’t want you to do this just to placate me.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Ed sat down on the next to Oswald on the plush velvet of the couch, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, about why I’ve never been able to bring myself to make this official, and the more I analysed it, the more I realised that my fears were irrational.”

“Fears usually are,” said Oswald, taking Ed’s hand. Ed smiled, just a twitch of his lips.

“True, but mine are especially so. My parents had a terrible marriage, but we’re nothing like them. I’ve been afraid of coming apart and hurting you somehow, but you’re the one who keeps me together, makes me whole,” he brought Oswald’s hand to his lips, brushed a kiss against his knuckles.

“So, you’re really asking me to…”

“I’m asking you, Oswald, if you’ll escape outside of the GCPD’s clutches with me for a while, and marry me for real?”

He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small metal object, unable to stop himself from grinning when he saw recognition cross Oswald’s features.

“You kept that all these years?”

“I’ve cleaned up the inside, smoothed it down. It shouldn’t leave rust on your finger anymore.”

Oswald took the old hexagonal nut from Ed’s hand and slipped it onto his ring finger.

“I couldn’t resist at least a touch of drama,” said Ed, a little sheepishly.

“You wouldn’t be the man I fell for if you did,” said Oswald, and he pulled Ed into an embrace.

“So, does that mean you still want to marry me?”

Oswald laughed softly near Ed’s ear, whispered quiet and close.

“I do.”


End file.
